


While I Was Away

by Mary_Jane221B



Series: I Would Give You All of Me [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Epistolary, Letters, M/M, Reichenbach-Related
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-22
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-02 21:47:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 7,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5264882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mary_Jane221B/pseuds/Mary_Jane221B
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is facing seemingly insurmountable challenges while battling his way through Moriarty's web. When he feels lost he writes letters that he hopes he will never have to send.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Month Four: Alexander and The Missing Women

Dear John

Tonight I am going to kill a man. You said once that one of the most important parts of owning a gun was that you trusted yourself to know when to shoot and when not to. I do not believe that I ever took the lesson you were teaching me in that moment to heart John.

 I am an irresponsible man. I always have been. I am reckless with both my transport and increasingly my mind.  I have done things over this past four months John that would disgust you. The memories keep me from sleep even when my body requires it, even when all I want in the world is to lose myself in unconsciousness the recollections of my actions haunt me. 

I am sitting in a stolen car a mile away from the place this man I must execute calls home and all I can do is hope that my actions do not change me into someone unrecognizable. I have already changed so much John. I do not believe you would recognize me even if I stood next to you in a crowded restaurant; my hair is fairer now, I have grown a beard as is the custom in many parts of the world I have been forced to inhabit and I have lost what little weight you managed to coax onto my frame with your months of pestering.

I hope you will forgive me for what I am about to do John, there is a great deal for you to forgive me for is there not but I hope that this will not be that one step to far. You have killed for me John, the very first case we undertook as partners you did not hesitate to save my life at the cost of another’s.  I never truly thanked you for that. For believing I was worth that. I hope I get the chance to tell you in person.

Yours

Sherlock


	2. A Ghost Town All Around

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Letter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello Dear Readers,
> 
> This is in fact the second chapter of this little fic outing but I thought i'd say hello now. I've managed to fix this so it appears in the series (hopefully cutting out any confusion) in the timeline of All of Me this run's alongside the first fic starting four months after Sherlock jumped off the roof of Saint Bart's. 
> 
> Hello to any newbies *waves* you don't necessarily have to have read AoM to understand what is happening here but it's interesting to my mind to see the difference between Sherlock's activities and John's. 
> 
> Let me know what you think my dears and I'll see you soon! 
> 
> MJ X

Dear John

The first time I held a gun I was fifteen and it was a hunting rifle. My Grandfather was a keen pheasant hunter and once the season was upon us he would take over the family’s estate in Yorkshire and prowl around our land with as many of his friends as he could muster. He continued with this tradition until late into his seventies when both his hearing and eyesight became too poor, but even then he would haunt our halls for those weeks when said poultry hunting was legal.

He was still in his sixties when I was in my teens. Mycroft and I were plagued by the same inadequacies in his eyes; we preferred books to sport, held a higher regard for intelligence than for strength and were more likely to plot a battle and its’ movements than lead the charge. Mycroft managed to find himself a position of power my Grandfather respected; Mycroft’s role today is an extension of the standing our family have held for generations whereas I went from Eton to Cambridge to cocaine back to Cambridge and finally to London where I wasted as much time as possible at Mycroft’s estate rather than face my family. I can hear you scoffing at the idea but really Mycroft is the best of a bad bunch in my bloodline. A pompous cake loving bureaucrat yes but not an abusive braggart by any means.

In any case I digress; Mycroft isn’t the worst of the worst and at the age of fifteen my Grandfather, whom I disliked with a passion, dragged me out of bed and presented me with a rifle longer than my arm. A family tradition apparently to go pheasant hunting the first season after your fifteenth birthday. It would be fair to say I bottled it John. Yes I went with them, yes I held the gun but at the age of fifteen I had no more interest in it than in the stream of debutantes my Mother seemed determined to introduce me to.

Yes John debutantes are still a thing and when I was young the balls were still very popular among certain families of the aristocracy. I had to waltz with so many women before my mother would accept the truth my father and brother had been telling her for years; I was gay and there was nothing she could do the change it. Although she tried wholeheartedly I walked into my childhood bedroom on my seventeenth birthday to find my half naked second cousin waiting to seduce me. My mother still denies any involvement in the affair but she wore the evidence all over her when I initially confronted my parents. I know we never spoke frankly about our sexuality John but I imagine even you could deduce my preferences. My mooning after you for quite so many months was likely a giveaway but still.

I am currently sitting on a terrible plastic chair in a mostly abandoned Spanish holiday village smoking a deplorable cigarette (yes John a cigarette but given the evening I have had I believe I deserve it. I promise to quit again if I ever manage to come home) and I am trying not to think about the women that man I killed tonight was holding in his rooms but it’s not proving easy. I held a gun to his head while he had his hands around one of them John, she couldn’t have been more than sixteen. I honestly believed I was about to throw up. The stench of this man John you wouldn’t have believed it.

This man tonight, Alexander, I doubt you will hear about him on any British media but Mycroft will and that thought scares me more than it should. I failed to hide myself well tonight John. My face may have been visible to cameras I cannot say for certain. I should have been more careful I know but there were so many children John and I was so angry.

He reached for his gun at the end John, when I told him why I was there. When I said Moriarty’s name. When he truly realized he was going to die. He threw that poor girl off him and grabbed for his gun. I took him down before he reached it but it was so messy in the end. There was so much blood John.

I bottled it again John, just a little, when I was fifteen I missed my shot deliberately; I shot too high and the three birds roosting in the area flew out of range. My Grandfather was so angry; he knew why I had done it. He slapped me John, knocked me to the ground in front of his friends and called me a coward. I didn’t care though John. I would have done it again. I had done what was right and I knew that to be true.

Tonight it was a moment of hesitation, I had a clear shot but I could not quieten the doubting voices in my mind John. It is moments like this that I miss both cocaine and you. You settled me John. Quietened the voices in my mind which are forever telling me I am wrong.

Can it ever be right to kill another person? You would undoubtedly tell me yes and I will not mourn this man’s loss or the peace I have brought to the women he terrorized; kidnapped, brutalized, sold. Women were chattel to him John. But should his sins, his monstrous nature, equal a death sentence.

I believe you would tell me yes, you would sooth this ache in my morality which tells me to bring death onto another who has never harmed you is wrong. I was never a solider John. I do not have your discipline. Your drive. Your certainty in what is right and what it wrong. I am no righteous warrior.

Do I believe that some people deserve to die? Yes, whole heatedly, do I believe it is my right to carry out their judgement and execution? That I am not sure of. I would do anything to protect you John. To protect the people I love. I would go against every fiber of my own morality to know you are safe.

I have become maudlin as the night draws on and with the depth with which I drink from this bottle. You would take it off me, tell me to sleep, wouldn’t you John? I wish I could. I doubt I will sleep tonight. There is still blood on my hands, under my nails, I can see it John but I can’t get it off. I am Lady Macbeth tonight John haunted by ghosts of my own creation.

I am ever thine John

Your Sherlock


	3. Month Five: Trains in Turkmenistan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello Poppets
> 
> A new letter and a new target for Sherlock. 
> 
> Enjoy
> 
> MJ x

Dear John

I deplore trains in this part of the world. There is a certain degree to which one can find entertainment in the behaviour of the masses but a much larger reality is to be found in the disruption the noise they create brings. I have wrapped myself within my coat, as much as I am able, as I have myself hunched into the corner of this compartment. There is no peace to be found here.

Across from me a mother nurses her newborn child while holding what looks to be a toddler so tightly I am surprised it still breathes but she does so to keep him outside the notice of our fellow travellers. They gamble and throw insults at passengers who dare to walk by and look for the source of all this commotion.

You are most likely wondering why I do not remove myself from this hell hole and the answer is a simple one; across from me, at the centre of this thuggish gang, sits my next target. He was a minor part of Moriarty’s web, granted, but with his master’s downfall Kemran Abdulov has been slowly making himself irreplaceable to Sebastian Moran. He has taken over control of the Silk Road operations and runs them with an iron fist. You would not know it to look at him; slight build, overly long greasy black hair, mid twenties, three bastard children he cares little for and a wife he barely sees, but the man is becoming a mob boss in his own right.

I find myself at a loss as to how to approach this one John, with all the people I have faced over my journey I have never really struggled to find a point of weakness to attack or exploit but I am struggling to read this man. He has little in his life he cares overtly for; with his parents’ dead and a serious lack of affection towards those children he himself has fathered this man appears to the outside observer, heartless.

You know I struggle with sentiment myself but I understand it to be a part of the human condition. I find myself in a state of bewilderment at a human who simply appears so divorced from positive feeling John. Perhaps this is why you have so often told me I am not in fact a high functioning sociopath, am I right in that John? Do you see my care for others, my love for them and my ability to feel something more than distaste? Did you see those things and immediately know that I myself am plagued by a life where sentiment has always played a part no matter how hard I fight against it.

There was a time in my life where I believed I was winning that battle John. I was alone for such a very long time before you came into my life. I had my work and the individuals I was forced to interact with for it. There was also my brother, who distanced himself from me while I was in my final stint of rehab and my parents.

There was eventually Mrs. Hudson whom I have known for so many years and who holds a very specific portion of my heart. My own mother never seemed to know how to handle my ‘eccentricities’ but Mrs. Hudson embraced them and saw them as gifts rather than annoyances I had always been told they were. She made me feel adored and cared for when I had become so used to being alone.

That final time I stood in a room with you, in one of the labs at St. Barts mirroring our first meeting, you were astounded by my lack of love for that woman. Know that your shock was well founded. I have never known a woman so deserving of devotion and protection as Martha Hudson.

So how do I handle a man that seems to embody a number of personality traits I myself had once found desirable. Perhaps that is the trick with this John. Perhaps I should look to what would have destroyed or damaged me in those days. He seems to take issue with losing John; his behaviour with his cohorts during our journey seems to blatantly highlight his most traditionally masculine traits. He is not the tallest of men John and clearly he is not the most academic. He hides his regional accent well but it is still present in the more casual utterances in his speech.

We are nearing this train’s final destination and I am running out of room on these slips of paper to tell you anymore.

I will find a way John. Believe me when I tell you I will not stop fighting no matter how impossible the target.

Yours always

Sherlock


	4. Seducing Mrs. Abdulov and Memories of Mr. Trevor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay just a little word of warning sweeties
> 
> In this chapter we have mentions of drugs use and sexual contact while under the influence. 
> 
> If any of those things are distressing for you then you might want to skip this. 
> 
> Be happy Dear Readers
> 
> MJ X

Dear John

 I am nervous about my next move John. I am uncertain about the decisions I have made and the plan I have already started to enact. I have befriended the wife of my enemy in order to gain access to his home and remove him from this volatile equation.

She has been attempting to seduce me John and I am ashamed to say I have been allowing it to continue. Not ashamed because I feel it is a betrayal to you John or even a betrayal to my sexual identity, if such a thing is possible, it is more that with every flirtatious utterance and every well placed hand I hear your voice telling me that playing with this woman’s emotions is ‘a bit not good’ but John I see this to be the most expedient and painless way to gain access to the place I need to be and security systems I need to learn.

She has invited me to her home tomorrow afternoon while her husband attends to business matters. I am hardly a master of seduction John; I have very little experience of the mechanics while sober.  Sex and cocaine went hand in hand for me for many years, my first and only experience of it while entirely sober occurred in university during my brief dalliance with the son of an ambassador; Victor Trevor, he was older and more experienced while I was unfortunately naive as to how these interactions should play out.

We dabbled with manual and oral stimulation before I agreed to being penetrated. Victor had no interest in ‘bottoming’ he informed me but he greatly wanted to lay claim to this facet of my sexuality. I have to admit that I found it mostly unpleasant. I had enjoyed the brief experiments we under took with oral sex a great deal and when Victor told me the pressure would be something akin to the stretch my jaw experienced (which I found pleasant enough) but intensified I was drawn in. I, of course, now realise he was lying but I was sixteen and thought myself very much in love.

He was a beautiful man John and I was very new to the feelings of attraction I experienced in those first few months of our acquaintance.  I don’t know why I believe it important for you to know this perhaps it is so you will understand my disquiet at the idea of having to engage in sexual intercourse with this woman.

I intend to avoid such actions John but I have not ruled it out of the possible progression this evening will have to take. My experiences of heterosexual sex have all taken place while I was under the influence of one drug or another.

The last time I truly lost control of my addiction I found myself fucking a woman I had only known a few minutes in front of a crowd of drug peddlers in order to earn both my next fix and hers’. I am ashamed to say I remember very little about her. She had dark hair and blue eyes and I do remember thinking it was a terrible shame her face was so drawn as she would have been quite beautiful once. I remember that being the instant John, even as she rode me and I held her hips whilst trying to imagine something other than the leering faces that surrounded us, that moment was when I realised I had to free myself of the affliction that opiate addiction had become for me.

I entered rehabilitation for the third time and this time engaged with the programmes they offered. I found the majority to be highly tedious and cloyingly emotional but the therapist the centre employed remains to this day an acquaintance that I see fairly regularly. Our appointments became more sporadic once you entered my life as I found myself needing less of a positive influence from Bernard; you provided that light John. You kept me right and sane.

Also between you and Mycroft I would have liked to see myself attempt to sneak cocaine into the flat. I did manage it once John; in the early days of our friendship while you were still pursuing Sarah and I was still unused to being surrounded by affectionate people (read here Mrs. Hudson and yourself for I doubt I would ever have called Mycroft affectionate) it may still be there, the cocaine.

I have to say I have not felt the need to extract that particular box from its hiding place for a long time. Perhaps if you do get this letter you might dispose of it for me; you’ll find a rosewood box with a carved top at the back of my wardrobe. It has a false bottom which slides away from the main body. The small vile within contains a seven percent solution of the finest cocaine I could find in London. There’s enough inside for two hits. I must admit I do still crave the fierce bite of that liquid in my veins after the sting of a metallic needle.

I have once again become distracted from the original purpose of this letter John. I hope you will forgive me my meandering thoughts. Needless to say I have an evening to myself before perpetrating whatever plan I come up with to counteract the intelligence my mark does possess.

I miss your face, your voice and your terrible coffee John.

Yours in all things,

Sherlock


	5. The Bottom Corner Of The Envelope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This note is a little different from the others. 
> 
> MJ x

_The note, when John finds it months later; hidden away in the bottom corner of the padded envelope, is both ripped and covered in the dried and cracked remnants of some poor souls blood. John thinks it is possible he is about to be sick. Some of the sentences are obscured and as such John can not be certain of their meaning._

 

My John

 

I was wrong. My deductions were wrong. I think I might be...

My mind is failing me John. I find myself a drift without...

Trust Mycroft John. It is important, he did not know about my...

Be safe John. I regret every moment that I did not tell you...

Be happy, be well and above all know that...

 

Love 

Sherlock


	6. December 5th: Germany

John

Currently in Germany listening to American tourists exalt the virtues of a real Christmas experience. Dull. 

There is a British couple sitting on the train in front of me however who may just become vital to me. Married, 15 years, husband is habitually unfaithful and the wife although subconsciously aware is happier living in her version of ignorance. 

Met in university, wife wants children and is unaware the husband made that impossible last year after his mistress of the time for pregnant with her second child. Secret vasectomy. riveting I know. 

The trip is a gift for the wife. Christmas? No something more romantic, anniversary then. Husband is overcompensating for weight gain, 18 lbs over 5 months, with an expensive suit. Indulgent for a man whose hours have been cut recently but the girlfriend said it made him look young. Girlfriend younger: early 30’s, no late 20’s. Works with him. Stereotypical; underpaid assistant. 

Wife is more intelligent academically. Something in science given the slight chemical stains on the cuff of her shirt. clearly a favorite even though she has lost weight and the fit has changed. Chemical is Iodine; assumed because of the colour it has settled to once dried on cotton, recent, perhaps two days old. 

Nothing about them would appear to be significant would it John. The deductions I've made would make this couple appear mundane. As if they were characters in one of the day time programs you and Mrs Hudson favour during your periods of unemployment. 

But it's all about the wife John. 

Ordinary in appearance and mundane in the image she presents to the public but she is in fact extraordinary or perhaps I should say she comes from an extraordinary family. 

Youngest daughter of an English Duke and his second wife. She is the favoured child; the jewellery she wears is exuberant for the wife of an unfaithful bank manager. Gifts from her father then. 

Her half brother is Lord Moran member of the house and first cousin to Sebastian Moran (although that chunk of information has been well buried from the public). 

So she has significant connections but that's not why she's interesting. She has been working with her family, under the protective pretense of their pharmaceutical company, to develop a new methamphetamine compound that would improve the purity of their product. 

They are test driving the product here in Germany which means Moran himself should be here soon. 

It was happy coincidence that her husband suggested a European holiday this year. Most likely because his latest mistress provided him with an ultimatum recently that he is seriously considering but he faces a dilemma. Not one of emotion, but one of security; how do you walk away from a marriage to one of the wealthiest, most influential and deadly families in the United Kingdom. 

Short answer: you don't. Longer: abduction, torture, poisoning followed by an expedient death once the wife's mother finds out. She's dangerous too but to a lesser degree than the brother and cousin. Father is ignorant for the most part having separated himself from the Moran family with the previous generations misadventures.

All rather convoluted I acknowledge but still. Interesting. 

So Moran. Moran's family. Germany. Drugs. No current overt links the wider syndicate but wherever Moran situates himself the web follows. Crime lords are soon to descend on Germany John and I won't throw away my shot. 

Sherlock


	7. Moran: 20 December

John

The plot thickens I'm afraid. Moran arrived two Sundays ago on a chartered plane originating in Ireland and diverted by Amsterdam for an unspecified reason but reports out of the country indicate his purpose was likely the cover up of their Minister for Internal Affairs murder. 

Mycroft must be having some sort of seizure with the whole mess. It's been two weeks of highly dull field work and tracking Moran's movements throughout the country.

It's so miserable here John and I miss London so. Simply the feel of that city’s ground beneath my feet would be heavenly.

I have avoided news of London since my departure but especially in recent weeks. This close to Christmas my family tends to make the occasional appearance in London society pages. Mother did always love a party. 

The annual Holmes winter party should be held next week and I wait with bated breath John to see what ridiculous sentiment filled speech my mother will give after my death. They raise money for drug awareness programs that still use the mantra ‘just say no’. I fear I do so often mock that lesson.

Treatment should not come into the treatment of addiction in my mother's opinion. I would be long dead John if it weren't for the treatment i received throughout my dealings with addiction. Even those that seemingly failed left a mark on me and helped when I eventually decided an error was present in my initial calculations. 

Cocaine, you see, was a distraction, a comfort and that flash of adrenalin my system needed to work at its’ peak. For my deductions to come fast enough to prove useful and not simply cause me an unbearable migraine. 

I have been plagued by migraines since my teens. We never discussed it and you never saw the worst of them John, I apologise for hiding them from you but I hate the idea of you feeling guilt for not being able to cure me of the dreadful things. 

I have tried that for decades now John; years of doctors, blood tests and brain scans. Resulting in drug trials, psychotherapy, needles, pain and once, memorably, a short course of acupuncture. 

All of that before I went to university and none of it worked. There was no relief until I went to university, until I met Victor and he introduced me to the blissful serenity of cocaine. The floating disembodiment of a seven percent solution's high.

Now, drug free, I endure them; the majority of the time with distraction but occasionally, on the worst of days, I lock myself away in a darkened room and attempt to sleep through it.

It was worse when I was a child, I used to scream and scream through them until I vomited. My mother, after the first four years, left me to my own devices. I do not mean to make her sound neglectful. I had the most thorough medical care John, through any and every illness, but my mother was never a coddler, at least not with me. 

Mycroft was the greatest help in the end. He bought me my first and only pet when I was six. “To teach me responsibility” was the official story but the truth of it was that I was lonely John. My brother saw it in me, saw the stern face I wore and the foul temper I was developing. He saw these things and bought me a friend, someone I could love and talk to whilst he was away at school. 

It was Christmas when he arrived, sitting gracefully in a woven basket lined with Holmes tartan. I remember my mother being furious and my father being silently accepting as I poured affection over my wonderful Red Setter puppy. He was everything to me John, I would sneak him into the school room with me and devote myself to teaching him tricks for hours on end.

Redbeard died just after my twelfth birthday, I was broken by his loss John, he meant such a great deal to me and I had missed his final weeks because of my parents’ insistence that I attended the same school institution as countless Holmes men before me. 

I have resisted the idea of pet ownership since that day. The closest I have come is Billy and as we both know he is already dead. No harm should really come to a skull. 

I hope you have not disposed of him John. I will be most put out if you have. 

Moran seems to be moving on so I suppose I shall do the same. I wonder if you ever had a pet, I wish I could simply ask you, or deduce it I suppose. 

Faithfully

SH


	8. December 25th: Christmas Day

Dear John

 

I hope Christmas is treating you well wherever you spent it. I imagine with your sister or Mrs Hudson, perhaps both, I was attempting to remember the details of our last Christmas together fully last night. I lay in bed and tried to place the events in a proper order in my mind but I am afraid they have become some what jumbled. I remember the disastrous party you insisted upon. I remember the morgue and Molly. I remember playing for you and Mrs Hudson but I think that came first. I played for you in the morning, something light, you went to see your sister first thing, it didn't go well.

You have a high tolerance for addicts John. I worry that your childhood may have convinced you it is your job to care for them or perhaps that was your medical training. So determined to make yourself useful John. Did we dance? Or was that in my mind? I have the memory of holding you close; my hand on your back pulling you against my chest. I do not think it can possibly be a true memory John because if it were, if I had held you that closely, felt your breath against my neck, I would surely have closed that last gap and laid my lips upon yours. 

I have imagined kissing you so often John. It happens in a myriad of ways. Sometimes it is soft and gentle; just a brush of lips, sometimes it is harder and fierce; one of us finally losing control and allowing that pulse of passion to engulf us. But more often it is somewhere in between; we sit together on the sofa, one of those rare occasions you coax me into eating a full meal, and I am lethargic in my dressing gown next to you. Perhaps you stretch your arm out along the back of the sofa as they do in those terrible movies you occasionally watch while intoxicated or more likely I am the one to move closer to finally give in to my impulses and lay my head upon your shoulder. I would rest there in the glow cast by our nineties monstrosity of a television and consider how to best proceed.

You always take the decision from me John, tilting my head up and meeting my eyes. You move forward as I do and our lips meet. It is slow to begin with, a gentle thing, the pair of us uncertain and surprised by the others participation. You draw back and realize I do not move away. You look in my eyes and finally see the depths of those feelings I have for you. That is the moment you smile. You smile at me and I smile back. You pull me on top of you, my narrow hips fitting within the cradle of your legs. I lay there shocked as I feel your erection beneath my own. You grin this time, that way you do when you catch me unawares and I can not have that John. So I rush forward crashing my lips against yours. My hands grab you, clench you to me, because now that I have you John I will not be letting go. I want you to be mine John just as I am yours. I want to hold your heart in my hand and know that you trust me not to break it.

You never reject me in these moments John, when I am soft and vulnerable against you, when you think you have the upper hand. I think this is my brains way of navigating your perceived heterosexuality and the heteronormativity that you seem to have decided accompanies your romantic relationships'. You do not belittle your partners John, I would never infer that, you like strong women and I believe would like strong men. But at the same time you like women who allow you to play up to the traditional/ stereotypical male role and take on the responsibilities inherent within that during these interactions, I can not imagine you allowing a woman to penetrate you sexually.

I wonder sometimes if you would let me or would you be dominant, would you want to fuck me? Would it be hard? or soft? Would you treat me like porcelain John? I think you would want to take control, you believe it is what society expects of you and you do like the play to societies rules do you not John? You are a provider and a protector John, at least in your mind. Who looks after you though? I would like to, I did try, I do not truly know if you would let me.

I played you music though. When your sister and her alcoholism, which reminds you so strongly of your mother and your childhood, would have brought you to tears on Christmas day. I liked to do that for you John; when you had nightmares, a terrible date, when you were frustrated with me for a case or lack of, when the clinic work you undertook was so dull you felt like throwing something, when I hadn't eaten for days and you were worried. I played for you John, I always played well for you.

You worried so much about that John, I fear I have failed to maintain the regimen within my diet that you had tried to devise. I rarely eat when I do not feel it is essential, I have been drinking coffee; I can not find decent tea in this part of the world and I have been smoking John. I figure that out of my three choices of addiction you would prefer nicotine above cocaine or reckless danger. The danger available to me on my current undertaking would involve coming face to face with any number of individuals who would kill me on sight or perhaps worse. These people are capable of creative cruelty John. Either way breaking my cover at this moment would mean dying at their hands and I do not believe you would wish that. I can not imagine you are angry enough with me to wish my truly dead. I heard you, that day in the grave yard, you asked me not to be dead.

Do you still wish that John? Do you still wish for me to return. I had hoped that perhaps by Christmas I would be able to contact you. That enough time would have passed and the lens that was upon you would have shifted but I know it has not. You are still in so much danger John. I fear for you more than myself most days. My surveillance, such as it is, is lacking in technology but I have over heard conversations and intercepted communications that relate to the continued monitoring of yourself, Lestrade and now my Brother. Their interest in Mycroft grows everyday that he is seen to be responsible for my actions. I have realized that they have placed the blame upon him for the disruption in their enterprise and I fear I am grateful for this John. I think it may prove useful to me in this instance for as much as I worry for my brother's safety the longer I can keep the attention away from myself, the longer I can move within the shadows of these organisations, the more likely It is that I will finish them and be able to return home to you.

I hope my home is still there and that I will still be welcome within it when I finally make it back to London.

I hope I will make it back to London. I hope I will live.

I hope I will be with you next Christmas and will have found the courage to tell you quite how much you have come to mean to me.

I hope you know that I have, and will, always love you.

Yours Sherlock.


	9. January 3rd: Ireland and Moran

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A photograph that appears just after New Year has Sherlock walking the edge of sanity.
> 
> Chapter warnings: sex and jealousy.

I saw the picture. God John. It has been so long since I last saw you and to then see you like that, with those people, and with that woman. Your arm wrapped around her and you wearing that half smile that was always a lie. 

She looked different John, is she? Not your usual type. Is that a good thing? You never did like those women John, the ones you say I drove away. But this one; elegance, intelligence, wit and undeniable beauty. Is she your dream John? Is she perfect to you? Does she treat you like a god and give you comfort with her body?

But that’s not you is it John? She could be your idealised image of a partner, she could welcome you into her life and home yet she will never be enough for you.

You just love sex don't you? You always have. I could always tell John. Do you really think I didn't know you masterbated in the shower most mornings. Perhaps it will come as news to you that you are not a quiet man, especially when you come. You grunt and you muffle your shouts but I can still tell.

Not to mention your leisurely wanks’ on the weekend. At least forty minutes of gratuitous touching on Saturday nights where you have no date to hold your attention or attempt to woo. 

I do truly hate you sometimes John. You have made me feel so much and very little of it would I ever thank you for. Jealousy for example is a useless emotion. It brings nothing but pain and yet I am unable to delete it. To delete the pressure of it in my head and the feel of it in my gut.

Listening to you bring yourself pleasure, picturing you standing alone under that spray and manipulating your cock; pumping it, regulating the pressure, did you thrust into it John? Did you hold your penis in a tight grip and thrust; imaging it was some woman's pretty wet vagina or slick mouth? Did you slip sometimes and drop your stubborn and hurtful façade of heterosexuality? Did you imagine a man John? A man's mouth? A man's arse? The pressure and friction of rubbing against another man's rock hard erection? Did you come to that fantasy John?

Did you imagine me John? Me on my knees begging for your cock? Pleading for it in my mouth, in my arse, hammering my prostate till I screamed, begging you to never stop, is that what you dreamed of John? I could have done that for you. I would have. I would have worshipped you John. Every inch of your body would have been my scripture and I would have devoted myself to it. To you. 

There is so much I wanted to experience with you John. I do not remember sober sex and the intoxicated experiences I do are more nightmares than pleasurable material to dwell on. You though John are the creature of my fantasies. You dwell there in my dreams always tempting me into unexplainable pleasure. Manipulating my body in ways I have never experienced. I trust you John. With anything. With everything.

I wanted you, I still do, but you're never going to be mine are you? I could survive all of this. I could fight through hell to save your life and you would still reject me.I could strip myself naked and parade around you like a porn star and you would think me deranged. 

Why is it John? Am I not good enough? Or is it simply my lack of a fucking vagina. 

I love you John. I always will and I miss you so much. I am walking through the fields of a hidden war and I am doing it for you. To keep you safe because despite my best efforts you remain at the forefront of my mind.

I had just hoped you would be there when I came home. But everything has changed hasn't it. I am dead to you and you have just moved on. I am alone and you are surrounded by love still. Do you even miss me at all? 

I suppose you would blame me for this. I blame myself John. So let us be agreed upon that. In this situation, in this hell, the blame shall lie upon me. As always.

SH


	10. Dear Molly: February 18th

_The brown package sits silently waiting for Molly in front of the microscope she had been using before leaving to fetch a fresh cup of coffee. Upon seeing both the handwriting and the lack of postage she finds herself quite lightheaded._

Molly

I am afraid circumstances call for me to ask you once more for assistance. My current situation means I myself will be unable to fulfill the task I set before you.

Enclosed is an envelope addressed to my brother. The contents I am afraid are private and to be entrusted only to my brother's care in the hope he will know how best to employ them.

If you could deliver them to him, in person, on or before the 20th of February I would be most grateful. You will likely find him at his club The Diogenes.

There is a good chance this will be our last communication Molly and I feel I must thank you for your help both now and in the past. Your kindness and patience has allowed me access to my work and peace through the logic of science.

Be safe Molly.

SH


	11. Mycroft: February 18th

Brother

Chance of survival less than 10%.   
Agreement still holds.   
Here is my list.  
Hold up your side. Please. 

‘Lock.


	12. The List

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Have you made a list?"
> 
> "Of what?"
> 
> "Of everything. Everything you have taken. Everything you have done."
> 
> Mycroft and Sherlock made a deal. Mycroft would always help Sherlock and Sherlock would always be honest and clear. 
> 
> Mycroft always saves Sherlock. Or so Sherlock hopes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we reach the end my Darlings! This has been different to write then most of the other things I have tried and I hope you all enjoyed it. 
> 
> Sherlock provides Mycroft with a note so Mycroft understands. It is clearly printed and on occasion vague but always honest.
> 
> I adore you all. 
> 
> Quick warning however this is quite an unpleasant list and if you would prefer not to read it I don't imagine it would spoil the story. 
> 
> MJ x

MYCROFT

 

I HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN THE RULES. NOR THE REQUISITE HONESTY. PLEASE BROTHER. 

 

MONTH ONE

CIGARETTES

COCAINE

VODKA

 

HOLED UP IN FRANCE FOR A MONTH AND WATCHED THE NEWS.

 

MONTH TWO

CIGARETTES 

NO COCAINE

VODKA

WINE

 

MOVED FROM FRANCE TO SPAIN. 'INTERVIEWED' THREE INFORMANTS. GATHERED INFORMATION ABOUT MORIARTY'S COMMAND GROUP. LEARNT THAT ASSASSINS WERE STILL IN LONDON. GREW FRUSTRATED. STARTED BARE KNUCKLE BOXING TO EARN MONEY. BEAT A MEMBER OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. FLED COUNTRY. STILL NO INVESTIGATING. 

 

MONTH THREE

 

CIGARETTES 

MORPHINE

WINE

VODKA

 

RETURNED TO FRANCE. DID RESEARCH . DISCOVERED AND INVESTIGATED CHILD TRAFFICKING RING. GOT TRAPPED IN A FIRE. SURVIVED.  HOSPITAL TREATMENT WAS REQUIRED. MORPHINE ADMINISTERED. PLEASANT.  DANCED WITH A SUSPECT. KISSED ANOTHER. WAS TEMPTED TO ADMINISTER SEX AS A METHOD OF DATA COLLECTION. DID NOT. SUSPECT ENJOYED HUMILIATING PARTNERS. DULL. NOT JOHN. MISSED JOHN.

 

MONTH FOUR

SOBER.

BOUGHT A GUN.

I KILLED A MAN. IT WAS UNPLEASANT ALTHOUGH HE DESERVED TO DIE. I AM UNCERTAIN WHAT THIS MEANS FOR ME. I DID NOT ENJOY THE EXPERIENCE. CAN I DISSOLVE THIS NETWORK WHILE FEELING THIS WAY. I AM ATTEMPTING TO CUT OFF SAID EMOTIONAL REACTION BUT I EXPERIENCE DIFFICULTY CENTERING MY MIND WITHOUT EITHER COCAINE OR JOHN. I MISS LONDON. I EVEN MISS YOU. 

 

MONTH FIVE

TURKMENISTAN.

FORCED CONSUMPTION OF GHB AND COCAINE.

INVESTIGATED DRUG SMUGGLING RING. WAS CAUGHT. UNPLEASANT. ESCAPED. 'HEAL THY SELF'. BOUGHT A NEW GUN. TOOK REVENGE. GOT TESTED AT LOCAL  HOMELESS MEDICAL SERVICE. PROVIDED WITH HIGH GRADE PAINKILLERS, I SAVED THESE RATHER THAN CONSUME THEM. BOUGHT COCAINE. DID NOT CONSUME IT. FLUSHED IT. MISS LONDON AND JOHN. 

 

ATTEMPTED SEDUCTION OF MARRIED WOMAN. ABANDONED ONCE OBVIOUS WOMAN WAS INTOXICATED AND I WAS UNABLE TO MAINTAIN AN ERECTION. NOT JOHN. TOO SOON. TOO MANY HANDS AND EYES. I CAN NOT SLEEP. 

 

MONTH SIX

 

UNABLE TO SLEEP. 

MEMORIES. TOO MANY HANDS.

COCAINE. 

MORPHINE.

HEROIN. 

SLEEP. 

 

MONTH SEVEN

DECEMBER.

 

LEAD ON MORAN. INVESTIGATING. PROGRESS. SOBER. 

CHRISTMAS. DULL. UNORIGINAL. 

BITTERLY COLD. VODKA. 

I MISS JOHN. I MISS MRS HUDSON. I MISS LESTRADE. 

I MISS LONDON.

I LOVE JOHN MYCROFT.

I MISS HOME. 

 

NEW YEARS

VODKA.

HEROIN. 

PHOTOGRAPH.

JOHN. 

HEROIN. 

SLEEP. 

 

ANONYMOUS SEX. PUNISHMENT. COCAINE. 

 

MONTH EIGHT

 

COCAINE.

MURDER. 

TORTURE. 

NO HOSPITAL.

SNOW.

BROKEN ARM.

 

MONTH NINE

 

I AM UNABLE TO RECALL. 

 

DRUGS. 

 

MONTH TEN

 

DRUGS.

ALCOHOL. 

KILLING. 

DUBLIN.

MORAN. 

ANGER. 

BOXING.

COCAINE.

NO SLEEP.

 

MONTH ELEVEN

 

FIRE

DRUGS

NEED WATER

 

 

I THINK I AM ABOUT TO BE CAPTURED MYCROFT. IN FACT I AM CERTAIN. I HAVE CYANIDE BUT PLEASE. FIND ME.


End file.
